Student's idea turns into 'addictive' game

Steve Pastro has had Light Byte - it's like Tetris with a twist - downloaded 10,000 times

An idea that grew out of his studies at Vancouver's Centre for Digital Media master's pro-gram has turned into a runaway success for grad Steve Pastro with the launch of his mobile game Light Byte.

The puzzle game, reminiscent of the classic Tetris but with a twist, was named one of iTune's hot games of the week with its recent debut in the app store. It earned a PocketGamer's gold award and perhaps what is most important for a gaming app - it has been tagged "addictive" by game reviewers and players alike.

"I've been very happy with the feedback," said Pastro.

At 99 cents a pop, shared with the app store and the San Francisco company Ayopa Games that published his game, the 10,000 downloads so far for Light Byte don't mean Pastro is about to quit his day job at Vancouver's Exploding Barrel Games.

But it's a crucial kickstart to his gaming career and affirmation that his decision to give up law school in favour of following his childhood passion for playing video games was the right one.

"It has had over 10,000 down-loads, which for a first attempt I'm pretty happy with," said Pastro, who grew up in Abbots-ford before going to the University of B.C. where he studied computer science before switching to political science when he decided on a career in law. However, he never made it to law school.

"I was ready to apply for law school but I decided, this isn't for me. I wanted to be able to create things," said Pastro.

"There was an open house at the Centre for Digital Media so I went and my roommate from my first year happened to be a student there."

The roommate gave Pastro the inside scoop on the Centre's masters of digital media program and Pastro soon signed up for the two-year pro-gram. The program gave him an opportunity to try his hand at all aspects of digital media, from designing, to producing, programming and leader-ship. As part of his program, he interned with Exploding Barrel Games, the company that hired him when he graduated earlier this year.

Light Byte grew out of a selfdirected study in mobile game design that Pastro started with last fall's semester.

"I made a million tiny proto-types and I thought, wouldn't it be a great experience to put a wrapper on it, to make some-thing polished that I could put out there, a portfolio piece I could put my name on," said Pastro.

Two days before last February's Super Bowl, Pastro came up with the idea of combining matching skills of traditional card games with the falling bricks concept of Tetris to create Light Byte. By Super Bowl day, he had a prototype ready to take to a game party.

"I tested the game with my little cousins and my aunts and uncles," he said.

It was an immediate hit at the family gathering.

"It takes elements from games that are familiar to people and puts them together in a totally new and unique way," said Pastro.

The reaction spurred Pastro to continue work on the game and to seek funding on the crowd-sourcing website Indiegogo so he would have the money to license it. The Indiegogo project raised more than $2,000, which covered most of Pastro's licensing costs. On a road trip to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in March, Pastro made contacts that eventually led to his publishing deal with Ayopa.

"I wanted to find a way to get the game into as many people's hands as possible," said Pastro.

While Ayopa gets a cut of the game revenue, Pastro said as an indie game developer, he thinks it was worth it for the marketing and exposure Ayopa was able to get for the game.

"It seems having that push behind you with an established name makes all the difference," he said.

What's next on the agenda? "I'm working until 3 and 4 a.m. at night on an update for Aug. 2," said Pastro.

Android and BlackBerry Play-Book versions of the app are planned for the future.